First degree mayhem

[alexsarll]

Wrongcoqs who shall remain nameless but who saw the Lemony Snicket film trailer*: the girl playing Violet Baudelaire is legal now, but wasn't when it was filmed. Square that with your consciences and your gods as best you can.

I don't read much crime fiction. Not through any objection in principle, I just never quite developed the habit. When I'm in a library, there are shelves I scan and shelves I don't, and Crime is one of the latter. I think the last thing I read which would be filed on those shelves was a Ruth Rendell novel of vivid_blue's which I picked up at hers and then realised was set in Finsbury Park.
But recently the recommendations for the work of James Ellroy finally reached critical mass and, seeking a more specific target from dr_shatterhand, I decided to try The Black Dahlia. I'm 100 pages in and loving it. Sure, being a novice there are times when the forties LA cop argot gets away from me. But I grew up on SF; so long as there are no more than three incomprehensible pieces of jargon per page, you can cope with it**.

Robin and I were talking last night about hypocrisy. He couldn't quite see why it has such a privileged place in my hierarchy of sins, why it arouses my hatred like none of the others. I think it's mainly because for all my stridency, I am still a moral relativist. Other people may do things like steal or kill or stand on the left of escalators, and while I wish to bludgeon them for it I am aware on some level that perhaps by their own lights, theyt're doing nothing wrong. And while I naturally place higher value on my version of events than theirs, there's no authority which can arbitrate between those moralities.
Hypocrites are the only people who, by definition, must know they're wrong. That either their moral code or their actions needs amendment. And yet they persist in both. That's beyond forgiveness.
(and no, you paranoid sods, this is not an oblique dig at any of you. Unless I have some very surprising lurkers)

*Those of you who haven't seen it, be warned: they have got every single thing utterly wrong.
**Note that upper limit. It's why I don't read Peter F Hamilton.

Comments

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

There isn't a legal age for girl on girl action dear. :P

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It still counts as indecent assault, technically.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

what even if they are up for it? ;P

Anyway she is cute, what is there not to fancy?

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

My trouble is Daniel Radcliffe. Is that the right name? *checks* Yes. 23 July 1989. Do you think Carla would do me a countdown till I can legally think wicked thoughts?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Note to any online coppers reading this post: I didn't mean the comments page to become a pa3dophile ring, please don't arrest me!

[my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com]

Phil Collins wrote a song about religious hypocrisy, didn't he? so it must be very very bad.

[my-name-is-anna.livejournal.com]

and... 1988???
shame on you, whoever you are.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Of course it must be very very bad. It's written by Phil Collins, so the statement is axiomatic.

[exliontamer.livejournal.com]

Oh, that girl is rather a fox. Would it have been okay for me to fancy her even if she were still underage since I'm a young'un? Or is that still wrong? She doesn't look very young.

xxx

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

But the character she's playing is supposed to be younger. It's a minefield and no mistake.

[ultraruby.livejournal.com]

Your posts remind me of all the columns I flick to first in all my favourite magazines.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I think. What magazines do you like?

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

Interesting on the hypocrisy. I agree with you, but I know I've been guilty of it in the past and probably still am in some respects, not all of them known to me. It depends on what sort of scale though, I think.

-x-

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think almost everyone fails to live up to their own standards on occasion, but there's a big difference between that and holding others to a harsher standard than one holds oneself.

[innerbrat]

The biggest hypocrites are those who bitch about hypocracy.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

That's very pithy but does it actually make sense?

[theresnorain.livejournal.com]

What don't you like about the trailer?
I actually found it was a little better than I expected.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Jim Carrey's not big enough for Olaf.
Jude Law's not hassled enough for Snicket.
Klaus has no glasses.
Sunny's too old.
Violet's too pretty.
The sets are too much like Disneyland.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Crime fiction, as a rule, is not my usual choice of reading, but Ellroy is a writer I can't recommend enough; taut and exciting like an x-rated Raymond Chandler. The Black Dahlia is a good place to start; then try The Big Nowhere.
In addition, for a dark, surreal, and very Welsh take on the genre may I recommend the excellent Last Tango In Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce?

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

is that the bloke who wrote Aberyswyth, Mon Amour?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I suspect I need a bit more acquaintance with the originals before I dip into a Welsh spin on proceedings. But if this continues on the same level, I shall certainly be reading more Ellroy.

[invadergaz.livejournal.com]

Not sure about your jargon-limit in regard to peter f. hamilton, since he's usually to busy cramming random sex into his plotlines to get too jerky on jargon. Mind you, its only a matter of time until he'll try and use "tokamak" in some kind of sexual inuendo.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I didn't get far enough to find any sex. Managed about three pages where 70% of the words were technobabble and then ditched him as a bad lot.

[electrodeserter.livejournal.com]

What about Violet Incredible?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Nah, she looks like publicansdecoy and I'm so over him.